'We release them and they will return to kill more'

By Toby Harnden in Jerusalem

12:01AM GMT 30 Jan 2004

Even in a city that still believes in miracles, only the eternally optimistic had dared hope that the carnage would not return. Yet all but the most cynical among a people long hardened to violence felt affronted by the timing of yesterday's blast.

As the suicide bomber stepped on the packed Number 19 bus making its way into the centre of Jerusalem during morning rush hour, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners were being loaded on buses after being released early from jail in Israel.

"What do they want from us?" asked Rhodine Newman, 80, as she stared at the charred and twisted metal. "We let them free and they do this. We let them free and tomorrow they will be coming back to massacre more of us. We are in a nightmare here. When will they allow us to live?"

Pointing at the volunteer Orthodox Jews sifting through the debris, she added: "Look at what they're doing. They're scraping up bits of bodies.

"Life doesn't mean anything to the Palestinians. They send their young ones to their deaths, sacrificing them so they can murder and maim as they leave the world. We send our young people to school to study and to learn to love life."

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It was the 29th suicide bomb to explode in Jerusalem since the latest Palestinian intifada began in October 2000. Ten more bodies to bring a total of 162 dead and dozens to add to the 1,151 injured in the previous 28 attacks.

Jerusalem had been spared since the beginning of September when 15 died in Cafe Hillel, about a mile from yesterday's blast. Israeli security officials said more than two dozen suicide bombers had been thwarted, many as a direct result of the controversial security barrier.

Yet the grim statistics of "successful" attacks and near misses give only an inkling of the scale of human tragedy behind them. "I knew the surgeon killed in Cafe Hillel," said Mrs Newman.

"One of my estate agent's family was injured and another killed in another suicide bomb. My granddaughter is only 16 but she has gone to so many funerals of friends."

Meshulam Perlman, 59, had been putting up hanging baskets outside his flower shop in Rehavia when he glanced over at the bus about 20 yards away. "I saw a flash and the roof lifting off maybe 60 feet in the air," he said.

"At first there was silence, then the screaming began. On the street there was the body of a young lady - just the bottom half. She had nice shoes and socks on, like she was going to a party or a fashion show. A woman was calling out for help. There was a headless person in the seat in front."

Steven Ben Shushan, 30, had just parked his car near his chocolate shop and was so close to the bomb that his skullcap was blown off. "The smell of blood and burning was awful," he said.

"There were pieces of bodies everywhere but one woman just sitting there on the bus. I couldn't see a mark on her but she was already dead."

He had felt a sense of inevitability that another attack had been coming. "It makes me angry that I was proved right. I knew that it couldn't be silent for much longer. It's like everybody knows what's going to happen but no one can do anything about it." Israeli officials stood by the police tape citing the attack as a graphic justification for the security barrier and stating that the close proximity of the residence of Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, was a coincidence.

"What they are trying to do is kill innocent people," said Gil Kleiman, a police spokesman. "The geographical location was secondary." So too, perhaps, was the fact that the atrocity came just as the prisoners were being freed.

But this mattered little to Israelis or to the Palestinians en route to the West Bank who chanted: "Yes to steadfastness. Yes to liberated Jerusalem."